Tell me your hideous workplace errors

[BordelDeMerde]

Today I was bitching about a colleague and accidentally sent him the messages I meant to send to the colleague I was bitching with. I referred to him as a 'mofo' in the messages.
Yes, it was incredibly childish and unprofessional and I'm mortified. I know, there's no need to tell me. I'm also very worried about the consequences.

I can't sleep because of it, so please cheer me up with your embarrassing work stories.
I promise I'm not the daily fail in poor disguise.

As a PA I once got my boss extradited from China during his work trip because I arranged the wrong kind of visa for the trip.

I would have died of shame and anxiety except I was on holiday myself when it all happened and only found out when I got back and it had been mostly resolved by then, by another colleague. Couldn't believe I wasn't fired though.

Also - it'll be okay in the end. Horrible work mistakes happen. In ten years you won't think about this.

I was changing a man's catheter and missed the bin when disposing of the old one. It ricocheted into my face and I got urine in my mouth.

I worked with another RN in ICU (20+years ago) and they kept a lot of our commonly used IV fluids in our pharmacy room unlocked but in neat piles-she meant to grab a bag of IV fluids to help expand blood quickly called HESPAN but grabbed a bag of blood thinner called HEPARIN and infused it rapidly to bring up the patient's blood pressure-unfortunately it caused catastrophic hemorrhaging and the patient died. This happened about a month before I started working there.I think she kept her license and job because there was obviously fault with how the hospital stored the fluids and they took steps to prevent such a tragedy from happening ever again. Thankfully now you have barcodes on IV fluids and nearly all medications and every patient wears a unique,barcoded ID bracelet and computerized software programs keep track of all medications administered. Also IV fluids are kept securely and clearly labeled. Safety first.

@EKGEMS

I worked with another RN in ICU (20+years ago) and they kept a lot of our commonly used IV fluids in our pharmacy room unlocked but in neat piles-she meant to grab a bag of IV fluids to help expand blood quickly called HESPAN but grabbed a bag of blood thinner called HEPARIN and infused it rapidly to bring up the patient's blood pressure-unfortunately it caused catastrophic hemorrhaging and the patient died. This happened about a month before I started working there.I think she kept her license and job because there was obviously fault with how the hospital stored the fluids and they took steps to prevent such a tragedy from happening ever again. Thankfully now you have barcodes on IV fluids and nearly all medications and every patient wears a unique,barcoded ID bracelet and computerized software programs keep track of all medications administered. Also IV fluids are kept securely and clearly labeled. Safety first.

Oh my goodness, that's scary! I bet the hospital were sued....

@JackOfGentleman Oh for sure they were or the hospital settled before reaching court! Coworker went through some sort of safety retraining and the state board of nursing was involved and she probably got put on probation of some sort (kind of fuzzy on all those details)

Years ago I worked for a major retailer in the food department in a very posh North Yorkshire town.
People spent lots of money in this shop.
There was a checkout which was notorious for having glitches and I had not worked there for long.
Lots of people queueing at the checkouts, I was asked to jump on this one and I started serving a lady with a very full trolley full of expensive things.
It was a weekend shop with meats and luxury items and alcohol. She also had items of clothing and homewares.
I moved the items over the scanner and when everything had gone through and been packed, the amount to pay was something ridiculous. The scanner was beeping away but had only registered a few items.
The bill came to about £30.
I rang the bell for help. The customer started kicking off and saying she was not going to stand there and unpack and have to go through all of that again.
The supervisor very quickly diffused the situation by charging what was on the till.
There must have been almost a thousand pounds of stuff in that trolley.
She said thank you very much and trotted off.
Apparently she was a regular customer but I did not know this.
The supervisor shut the checkout down and i returned to whatever I was doing.
Nobody said a word. I felt thick and stupid.
I still cringe when I think about it.

Having said that, after the shop closed and we threw thousands of pounds of fresh food away in a skip each day, it makes what I did seem like nothing.

Got caught rooting around in my nose for an uncomfortable bogey on a teams call - I thought my camera was off

Once transferred £150,000 to the wrong bank account.

I crashed the company car on my very first day. Completely my fault.

I sat there and for a split second considered just leaving the scene of the accident and never returning.

We had colleague who was on a personal call the whole floor could hear. I sent an IM to my friend saying ‘jeez do we all need to hear this?’ Or I thought it was my mate…yes I sent it to loud fm herself. I didn’t really get in trouble I said it was a ‘moment of frustration’!

@Anordinarymum I don’t understand what you did wrong? Why did it make you cringe? Were you supposed to have just let her have it for almost free?

Only thing I can think of is when I worked at primark, I accidentally gave someone a tube of wrapping paper for free because I forgot to scan it. I actually realised before she began to leave, but for some reason I smiled and said bye and watched her walk away with it. Not a big deal at all really but I remember shitting myself for the rest of that shift

I posted 2 medical reports to 2 clients... but put the wrong cover letter on the reports... , so the medical reports were sent to the wrong client.

Yes, full medical reports with all their personal details plus private medical information.

Massive data breach, and breach of our professional obligations.

Thankfully I was v v junior at the time, and it was bosses job to supervise and check all my post. He hadn't bothered to check properly, so he got the bollocking and disciplinary and not me.

He did, however, hate me ever after.

@Thesandmanishere

Once transferred £150,000 to the wrong bank account.

Could you accidentally do that again?

My account number is...

First job in a shop as a teenager. Someone paid by card and the machine told me to call the bank line. I called it and the person on the other end said a code eg "4352". I had no idea wtf they meant. I must have sound panicked cos they told me to calm down.

Rather than asking someone, to avoid a scene I just gave the person their card back and said it was fine. To this day I have no idea what it was all about.

I also gave used towels to visitors at a spa during some work experience.

And accidentally wrote a rude word on a presentation slide being displayed as the backdrop at a huge conference.

I can be such a moron.

Accidentally gave away about £20K in extra bursaries, bet those students were pleased!

I knew someone who ordered twice the amount of pizza for around 500 people... So pizza for 1000. Bit ridiculous really.

Was checking an email address in outlook, put it in cc to see the address and who it included, then managed to forget to delete it, asking 'who exactly is this sent to??' I. E everyone on the fucking list. Can't really explain that one, makes no sense to me either really but anyway, I fucked up.

@Thesandmanishere

Once transferred £150,000 to the wrong bank account.

I did similar and had to make a very embarrassing phone call to the people in receipt to correct it

@BordelDeMerde similar to you, I called my boss a witch in an email to my work colleague and it got saved into an email folder my mistake that my boss saw !! I was totally mortified!!

I did the exact same thing as you @BordelDeMerde Decided I had to own it and apologise immediately - so just sent another email fessing up and admitting I'd been totally in the wrong. Honestly felt like I was going to have a heart attack otherwise. He then sent me a super annoying, patronising, graceless response including all the people I'd copied in which I had to suck up with my cheeks on fire! Aaah! It's making me feel anxious remembering it all over again. But don't worry too much, people make mistakes, these things happen and it will be old news in a few days.

Not so long ago in my previous role (not why I left) I accidentally committed a huge GDPR breach by sending a customers details through email to the wrong mailing list, classified as gross misconduct in that company. Luckily I spared due to a good relationship with my boss. Would have ended up very differently if I was a junior colleague.

GDPR data breach by cc'ing loads of people rather than bcc'ing. I was mortified...these things are incredibly strict in my line of work. After a weekend of sweating myself into a state, Boss settled for a ticking off as he could see I was really upset about it. I was very grateful.

I addressed someone on an envelope as Mr instead of Mrs. She called up and was very angry 🤭 oh well..!

Sent a shipment of medications all over the world - they had to be recalled as they hadn’t been approved yet - I left weeks later (before I was pushed)

Document about to be sent to customer which should have read Captain Hunt. Corrected it just in time.....

@gettingoverthings

Got caught rooting around in my nose for an uncomfortable bogey on a teams call - I thought my camera was off

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